Which is it?

A bottle of cheap French wine ...



... or could it be ...

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch?


OK, I admit it. I've been to lazy to post anything substantial.

And that is something that is not going to change today. Just wanted you to know that I am still here. I do have a bunch of pictures to post from the trip to Turkey, and hopefully will get to that sometime this week.

For now here is a picture of my pantry with several sausages and the Rose de Lautrec garlic hanging.



I did not make any of these sausages, but I am hoping to make some this winter.

Please stay tuned...

Oh yeah, and I'll post a picture of my new wheels then too!

Nîmes …

My previous entries on our journey to the South of France took us up the Cassoulet Trail, but now we were going to see some really cool stuff. Our next stay would be in Nimes before heading back to Montpellier the night before flying back to Germany.

Nîmes is an interesting town. It as a substantial amount of Roman era buildings/monuments/etc. which are still intact including the Miason Carrée…



It also has a coliseum that is still used for the Bullfighting festival (among other things)…



Nîmes has a heavy Spanish influence also (hence the Bullfighting Festival). We wandered around and took some Pictures of some pretty cool stuff.



That night we ate a restaurant that was mentioned in one of the Michelin Guides that I looked at in a used bookstore. It did not have a Michelin Star, but it did have a “Bib Gourmand”. A “Bib Gourmand” is basically a picture of the Michelin man licking his lips, and is supposed to signify that the establishment has good food at moderate prices. While I do not want to quibble with the Michelin judges over what is a moderately priced meal, I feel that I must say that this was, hands-down, the worst meal I had in France. The worst for the price anyway, which while not too dear, was definitely too much. Nothing about the meal was really bad, but nothing was very good either. They had wines that were damn near as old as I am (and probably had better life insurance as well). I felt like Steve Martin in “The Jerk” when I asked the girl if she had anything “newer”.

The next morning we had breakfast at the market. This was good, a simple omelet and some coffee. The market was also fantastic, although I didn’t get too many photos inside. They had the “Rose de Lautrec” Garlic that I had been seeking out for a friend in Kentucky. So I picked up two kilos, and kept one for myself. I also picked up some dried salami that was pretty good.

Here is a picture of the Garlic and Sausage and the Cassoulet bowls that I purchased in Castelnaudary…



After the market we headed out to Pont du Gard, which was the whole reason for coming to Nîmes. The Pont du Gard is the longest surviving stretch of an aqueduct that once carried fresh water for the city from a point some 50 kilometers away. This thing is impressive.





After walking around and gawking at the aqueduct for the better part of the morning, we headed out for Montpellier. Even though it is a sister city of Louisville, Kentucky, I just did not feel the need to explore Montpellier. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived, so we headed down to the beach for a couple of hours and watched the sun set on the Mediterranean.



The next morning we flew back to Germany.

The last two weeks I’ve been out of town for work. I’ve visited the Christmas markets in Wiesbaden, Nuremburg, Heidelberg, and Mannheim. They all have pretty much the same stuff, and they all have Glühwein.



For those of you who don’t know, Glühwein is a mulled (spiced) red wine that is served warm. And yes it tastes just like you’d imagine it would (i.e. not very good, too sweet, and any other adjective you would like to apply). However, even though it tastes as bad as it sounds, I have sampled the Glühwein at all of them (for strictly scientific purposes).

Last Thursday night in Mannheim, a couple of us dined at a Turkish restaurant. I had the Lammskopfsuppe (Lambs head soup), and no, it didn’t stare back at me from the bowl. It was very tasty, although I kept hearing Mick Jagger singing “Angie” the whole time I was eating it.

The Turkish restaurant was a good prelude, because I’m flying to Turkey tomorrow morning. We will be there for work through Friday, but a few of us are going to spend the weekend in Istanbul. One of the guys going with us is from Istanbul, so he’ll be able to show us where to go and what to see.

Stay tuned, it should be fun!

As always more photos on the flickr page.

Carcassonne and Toulouse …

The weather predictions for Montpellier looked promising; highs in the mid-50’s and sunny. That was before we left. It wasn’t bad when we touched down in Montpellier, but then we started driving away from the coast it got chilly and started to rain a bit. I should have checked the weather predictions for the other areas we were going to, and not just the town where we flew into. I might have brought warmer clothing, as it stood I had a hooded sweatshirt and a light waterproof jacket. I wished I would have brought a sweater too.

We drove to Carcassonne, checked into our rooms, and headed across the river toward the Medieval City.





We were able catch glimpses of it from between buildings…



We crossed a bridge over what used to be a moat…



And we were in…



Carcassonne is a completely walled city; some of which dates back to the 6th century. It was rebuilt in the 19th century, so although some of the walls and foundations are very old, much of it is not. It is still a neat place to stop, and the lower town has some very good cassoulet. Here is another picture that I took a few days later from the highway.



After leaving Carcassonne we drove up to Toulouse, stopping along the way in Castelnaudary for some more cassoulet. Toulouse is a nice town that has some areas that are very well kept up. In the downtown area we saw little or no litter or graffiti. There was the occasional beggar, but nobody was very pushy about it. We walked around Toulouse and took some pictures...







We stopped at a couple of markets, had some grub, and drank some good wine.







And no I did not eat what is in that last picture; although, I will be going to Barcelona in January and there is a place there that specializes in them.

I did get the chance to try a little of someone else’s andouillette. An andouillette is basically a chitterling (intestine) sausage. This was not one of my favorite things.

Click HERE for more pictures on my flickr page.

On the Cassoulet Trail…

On the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving, I was contemplating the past couple of meals I’ve had. We have just completed eating three meals of cassoulet, in three different restaurants, in three different towns, in just under a day and a half.

Tuesday night dinner in Carcassonne was Cassoulet…



Wednesday afternoon lunch in Castelnaudary (the home of cassoulet) was Cassoulet…





And Wednesday night dinner in Toulouse was also … well … Cassoulet (sorry but I don’t have any pictures of the Cassoulet from Toulouse).

The one in Carcassonne was by far the largest and arguably the best. Neither one of us was able to complete it, but we had both had appetizers beforehand. My appetizer was a big slab of foie gras. So take it from me kids, if you are sitting down to have a meal of cassoulet, you can skip the appetizers (and any side dishes for that matter).

Lessons Learned.

Thursday is Thanksgiving, and right now I think I’d give thanks to someone who passed me a salad and didn’t ask me if I wanted anything else.

The French wines have been good, the food has been great, and the weather has been colder than expected. However, cassoulet is a good cold weather meal. It’s a real “stick to your ribs” (or in my case – “stick to the region right below the ribs”) kind of meal. If you google it I’m sure you can find a decent recipe. It is by no means fast food; however, if you take the time I’m sure you’ll find it worth your while.

I purchased 3 cassoulet bowls for under 20 euros in Castelnaudary as well as a couple of other goodies that you will have to wait to see. I am out of town right now and don’t know how much I’ll be able to update this before the weekend. I took a lot of photos so I’ll try to post a few later on this week.